CHAPTER VIII
ADDED PEARLS
The days which followed were golden days to Jane. There was nothing tospoil the enjoyment of a very new and strangely sweet experience.
Garth's manner the next morning held none of the excitement or outwarddemonstration which had perplexed and troubled her the evening before.He was very quiet, and seemed to Jane older than she had ever knownhim. He had very few lapses into his seven-year-old mood, even with theduchess; and when someone chaffingly asked him whether he waspractising the correct deportment of a soon-to-be-married man,
"Yes," said Garth quietly, "I am."
"Will she be at Shenstone?" inquired Ronald; for several of theduchess's party were due at Lady Ingleby's for the following week-end.
"Yes," said Garth, "she will."
"Oh, lor'!" cried Billy, dramatically. "Prithee, Benedict, are we totake this seriously?"
But Jane who, wrapped in the morning paper, sat near where Garth wasstanding, came out from behind it to look up at him and say, so thatonly he heard it "Oh, Dal, I am so glad! Did you make up your mind lastnight?"
"Yes," said Garth, turning so that he spoke to her alone, "last night."
"Did our talk in the afternoon have something to do with it?"
"No, nothing whatever."
"Was it THE ROSARY?"
He hesitated; then said, without looking at her: "The revelation of THEROSARY? Yes."
To Jane his mood of excitement was now fully explained, and she couldgive herself up freely to the enjoyment of this new phase in theirfriendship, for the hours of music together were a very real delight.Garth was more of a musician than she had known, and she enjoyed hisclean, masculine touch on the piano, unblurred by slur or pedal; moredelicate than her own, where delicacy was required. What her voice wasto him during those wonderful hours he did not express in words, forafter that first evening he put a firm restraint upon his speech. Underthe oaks he had made up his mind to wait a week before speaking, and hewaited.
But the new and strangely sweet experience to Jane was that of beingabsolutely first to some one. In ways known only to himself and to herGarth made her feel this. There was nothing for any one else to notice,and yet she knew perfectly well that she never came into the roomwithout his being instantly conscious that she was there; that shenever left a room, without being at once missed by him. His attentionswere so unobtrusive and tactful that no one else realised them. Theycalled forth no chaff from friends and no "Hoity-toity! What now?" fromthe duchess. And yet his devotion seemed always surrounding her. Forthe first time in her life Jane was made to feel herself FIRST in thewhole thought of another. It made him seem strangely her own. She tooka pleasure and pride in all he said, and did, and was; and in the hoursthey spent together in the music-room she learned to know him and tounderstand that enthusiastic beauty-loving, irresponsible nature, asshe had never understood it before.
The days were golden, and the parting at night was sweet, because itgave an added zest to the pleasure of meeting in the morning. And yetduring these golden days the thought of love, in the ordinary sense ofthe word, never entered Jane's mind. Her ignorance in this matterarose, not so much from inexperience, as from too large an experienceof the travesty of the real thing; an experience which hindered herfrom recognising love itself, now that love in its most ideal form wasdrawing near.
Jane had not come through a dozen seasons without receiving nearly adozen proposals of marriage. An heiress, independent of parents andguardians, of good blood and lineage, a few proposals of a certain typewere inevitable. Middle-aged men--becoming bald and grey; tired ofracketing about town; with beautiful old country places and anunfortunate lack of the wherewithal to keep them up--proposed to theHonourable Jane Champion in a business-like way, and the HonourableJane looked them up and down, and through and through, until they feltvery cheap, and then quietly refused them, in an equally business-likeway.
Two or three nice boys, whom she had pulled out of scrapes and set ontheir feet again after hopeless croppers, had thought, in a wave ofmaudlin gratitude, how good it would be for a fellow always to have herat hand to keep him straight and tell him what he ought to do, don'tyou know? and--er--well, yes--pay his debts, and be a sort ofmother-who-doesn't scold kind of person to him; and had caught hold ofher kind hand, and implored her to marry them. Jane had slapped them ifthey ventured to touch her, and recommended them not to be silly.
One solemn proposal she had had quite lately from the bachelor rectorof a parish adjoining Overdene. He had often inflicted wearisomeconversations upon her; and when he called, intending to put themomentous question, Jane, who was sitting at her writing-table in theOverdene drawing-room, did not see any occasion to move from it. If therector became too prosy, she could surreptitiously finish a few notes.He sank into a deep arm-chair close to the writing-table, crossed hissomewhat bandy legs one over the other, made the tips of his fingersmeet with unctuous accuracy, and intoned the opening sentences of hisproposition. Jane, sharpening pencils and sorting nibs, apparently onlycaught the drift of what he was saying, for when he had chanted thephrase, "Not alone from selfish motives, my dear Miss Champion; but forthe good of my parish; for the welfare of my flock, for the advancementof the work of the church in our midst," Jane opened a despatch-box anddrew out her cheque-book.
"I shall be delighted to subscribe, Mr. Bilberry," she said. "Is it fora font, a pulpit, new hymn-books, or what?"
"My dear lady," said the rector tremulously, "you misunderstand me. Mydesire is to lead you to the altar."
"Dear Mr. Bilberry," said Jane Champion, "that would be quiteunnecessary. From any part of your church the fact that you need a newaltar-cloth is absolutely patent to all comers. I will, with thegreatest pleasure, give you a cheque for ten pounds towards it. I haveattended your church rather often lately because I enjoy a long, quietwalk by myself through the woods. And now I am sure you would like tosee my aunt before you go. She is in the aviary, feeding her foreignbirds. If you go out by that window and pass along the terrace to yourleft, you will find the aviary and the duchess. I would suggest theadvisability of not mentioning this conversation to my aunt. She doesnot approve of elaborate altar-cloths, and would scold us both, andinsist on the money being spent in providing boots for the schoolchildren. No, please do not thank me. I am really glad of anopportunity of helping on your excellent work in this neighbourhood."
Jane wondered once or twice whether the cheque would be cashed. Shewould have liked to receive it back by post, torn in half; with a fewwrathful lines of manly indignation. But when it returned to her in duecourse from her bankers, it was indorsed P. BILBERRY, in a neatscholarly hand, without even a dash of indignation beneath it; and shethrew it into the waste-paper basket, with rather a bitter smile.
These were Jane's experiences of offers of marriage. She had never beenloved for her own sake; she had never felt herself really first in theheart and life of another. And now, when the adoring love of a man'swhole being was tenderly, cautiously beginning to surround and envelopher, she did not recognise the reason of her happiness or of hisdevotion. She considered him the avowed lover of another woman, withwhose youth and loveliness she would not have dreamed of competing; andshe regarded this closeness of intimacy between herself and Garth as adevelopment of a friendship more beautiful than she had hithertoconsidered possible.
Thus matters stood when Tuesday arrived and the Overdene party brokeup. Jane went to town to spend a couple of days with the Brands. Garthwent straight to Shenstone, where he had been asked expressly to meetMiss Lister and her aunt, Mrs. Parker Bangs. Jane was due at Shenstoneon Friday for the week-end.